


Safe

by PeniG



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Canon-Typical Body Modification, Established Relationship, Fluff, Intimacy, Other, immediately post smut though, not smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-19 08:16:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22774771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeniG/pseuds/PeniG
Summary: Aziraphale's made a safe space for experimenting with certain very private earthly pleasures, and Crowley's completely on board with it, but the side effects blindside him a bit.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 27
Kudos: 182





	Safe

He didn't finish screaming Aziraphale’s name before collapsing onto his angel’s back, sobbing with every muscle in his body that wasn’t still twitching, face wet eyes blind brain empty helpless choking, not a demon or a spirit or a mind, nothing here except a body reacting to bodily things in an overwhelming bodily way.

Even after his sense of self arose from whatever deeps it had been driven to, Crowley was barely a spectator of his own state, scrambling for the synapses of control that had never, ever let him down before and failing utterly to connect any of them. He possessed consciousness for awareness, and no more. Aware of legs and arms and shoulders and wings being curled up tight as their thrashing stilled, of scales rippling in and out of skin, of throat and lungs and diaphragm spasming in a coordinated but uneven rhythm, of salt stinging in mouth and sinuses, of wet all over his face and in his mouth and dripping off his chin and plastering his ruined side-curls to his cheeks, of all-enveloping warmth and skin and feathers pressing firmly and evenly on all sides, of gentle rocking, of a pulse tapping softly on his temple, of a deep monotonous hum vibrating a familiar counter-rhythm into his skin.

Aziraphale’s arms and legs and wings and skin, holding him snug; Aziraphale’s vocal apparatus imitating a zither, to play an old, old, old song about a goat going up a hillside.

Crowley laughed when he realized that; only a gasp against Aziraphale’s chest, but a start. His angel rocked him, humming, as Crowley wheezed and sobbed and choked until his mouth and throat muscles got together sufficiently to stammer out: “So-sorry! I’m - I’ll be - I -“

“Shh, my dear. Nothing to be sorry for.” The zither in Aziraphale’s chest and throat thrummed away without inconveniencing his speech; and Crowley sobbed anew because that trick of his angel’s corporation’s, accompanying himself with himself, was something he only did when alone - by himself, or with Crowley - something belonging only to him and to them and precious, so precious. “Shhh, shhh, shhh, you’re all right. I’ve got you. You’re all right.” He kissed Crowley, twice, once on each disgusting sticky eyelid that he couldn’t open, and the sobbing started again.

The next time he tried his voice he did better. “I don’t know - I’m not - this is - _hhngh_ -“ He paused to draw in, finally, a full lungworth of air (intensely Aziraphale-scented air), stilling the convulsions in the back of his throat, blinking his eyes open, though he still couldn’t see anything but a blur of skin overlaid with sweet pale whorls of hair. “I’m _happy_ , all right, everything’s, this is, that was - _fun_ \- nothing to cry _about_ , I don’t know what’s _wrong_ with me, I -“

“I know, my dear, I know,” said Aziraphale. “I should have anticipated this. It’s only that you’re so good at pretending to be continually at ease, I never realized before how tightly wound you were. But we’re _safe_ here. No one’s looking for us, no one’s thinking about us, we’re warded from accidental intrusions, from everything, and I’ve got you. You can cry or scream or laugh or dance, can be as good and sweet and kind and considerate as you want, and we’re _safe_.”

Crowley made no protest, because they _were_ safe. Aziraphale had gone to considerable trouble to create a safe space and choose a safe time for this series of experiments; and _of course_ he read all of Crowley’s selfish pleasure in pleasing Aziraphale as goodness and kindness. Correcting him was not worth the effort. Instead he blinked, and breathed, and unfurled one of the arms squeezed between them to snake it around his angel’s back. Aziraphale’s own arms held him securely around the torso, his hands soft and firm at the base of Crowley’s folded wings; his legs wrapped Crowley’s hips, supporting them, pressing their quiescent temporary genitalia pleasantly but not urgently together between them; and white walls of wings enveloped them both, impenetrably strong. Crowley shifted his head on Aziraphale’s breast, so that the pulse of his angel’s heart beat closer to his mouth, and unfolded the other arm far enough to feel the vibrations of the goat going up the hillside with his palm. “You’re not, not seriously saying I was crying for _joy_?”

A chuckle interrupted the goat. “Relief, at least. But why _not_ for joy? It happens.”

“Not to _me_. Not to demons.”

“Because joy and relief don’t normally happen to demons, not because you _can’t_. Apparently.” Aziraphale kissed the top of his head, stroked the overlapping feathers and scales between his wings, wanted (Crowley could always sense what he wanted) his dear sweet demon to allow himself to be happy.

The next breath was long and shaky. “I thought I couldn’t cry at all. I thought - I thought -“ Damn, he was supposed to be giving Aziraphale what he wanted; was allowed to give and give and give for once, no holds barred, no hanging about waiting for permission, yet here he was, weeping like some stupid weak pitiful - _something_. But it was too much work to be disgusted with himself. 

“You told me once all your tears burned up in the Fall. That clearly isn’t true. So I suggest that the explanation is that, since you Fell, you’ve had plenty of things to cry _about,_ and no safe place to _do_ it.”

_“Demons don’t -“_

“Demons don’t _dare_ , darling. You’re the bravest demon in the world, so kind, so sweet, so very very good to me -“

“I’m _not!_ Don’t even _say_ that, don’t _joke_ about it -“ Why was panic not spiking in his chest? 

“ _You are_ ,” Aziraphale crooned. “I can say it here, now, this moment. Any other place and time, it’s dangerous, to be those things, to be _you,_ but you _do_ it and are on high alert the whole time, but even _you_ don’t dare _cry_. Don’t dare to shut down and lose all sense of your surroundings and who might be coming to smite you or skin you.”

“I shut down all the time! I get plastered! I sleep!”

“And what happens if another demon catches you napping?”

“They don’t. They won’t. I always ward myself before a nap. I’d probably be awake before they got to me. But if they did, I reckon they’d wake me up the rudest way they knew how and I’d come up fighting and yell at them for interrupting my Sloth.”

“Exactly. And it’s the same when you’re drinking, isn’t it? Intoxication is well within your expected purview. Crying, on the other hand, is an _indulgence_ , but it’s not a _sin_. To anyone from Hell, it must look like a weakness.” Aziraphale, apparently, had made a study of crying and this was his chance to share what he’d learned. Crowley felt the corners of his mouth twitch. Lovely silly angel, always going on about something! “Even humans only cry when they feel safe, or when their distress is so intense they don’t care what happens to them anymore. Orgasms are similar in that regard. You’d never had one before - I presume?”

“Of course not! Why would I ever go to so much Effort, without you involved?” His legs oozed down to drape themselves over Aziraphale’s hips. Now that his consciousness had expanded to fill his body again, he felt light and empty, the ache of longing he’d been closed tight around for millennia gone; because what he longed for wrapped him all around, secure and warm.

Aziraphale made a small, self-satisfied sound. “That’s what I thought. Orgasms and crying are both extreme releases of physiological and emotional tension. It’s not surprising that one should trigger the other, in someone whose tension has never been released at all since time began.”

Crowley blinked some more. “Hmm. _You_ didn’t cry, though. The first orgasm I gave you. You _laughed_.” He waited for the jealous edge to cut him, at the thought of Aziraphale making preliminary experiments without him; but how could he be jealous, when the entire world was bounded by white wings, with a population of two? He shifted his head, to see the eyes; the bright clear blue shining into his face, focused only on him, crinkling and twinkling and seeing right through him.

“No, I hadn’t had one before either! But I wasn’t nearly as tense as you! You watch, the next one you have, _I’ll_ make _you_ laugh!”

“Oh, you think so, do you?” Crowley tried to sound defiant. “You’re _constantly_ tense, angel. Always fretting, always worrying, always on the teetering edge of having a tizzy. It’s a miracle you haven’t wrung your hands right off at the wrists!”

“Well, yes, I’m not as good an actor as you are. However, _I_ can cry over a book, or at a funeral, or laugh myself witless, or bleed off tension in a hundred different ways, a bit at a time, and the worst that will happen is, that if I’m caught at it, my superiors will think I’m a silly angel who’s too invested in human life and earthly distractions. Which they already _do_. But _you_ can’t do any of that. Not and keep us both safe. You have to be the insouciant dashing careless roguish demon _all the time._ ” A tremor interrupted the zither in his chest; his eyelashes fluttered with regret. “I’m sorry I never realized that before.”

“ _Glk._ I didn’t _want_ you to. I wish you didn’t know it now.” And yet, he was not distressed about it. Time enough for that, later, when the world opened up to admit danger and distress again.

“It’s better for me to know. I won’t say we shouldn’t have secrets, because we must, professionally, but in these matters, we need to understand each other. If we don’t, who will?”

Crowley traced the curves of Aziraphale’s torso with his finger, the smooth skin and the soft hair and the rolls of fat and the lurking muscles. Inside this warm cave of wings his angel glowed, had been glowing steadily since the first buttons came undone. Crowley had done that; made him glow with happiness. And now Aziraphale wanted _him_ to be happy, too. He didn’t know how to do that. But he would try. “I got you all wet.”

“That’s all right, my dear! Tears are clean.” A ripple of laughter ended the goat’s hillside journey for good. “I must say, I’m glad these corporations don’t mimic human ones perfectly! A human who cried that much would generate huge amounts of phlegm.”

Crowley wrinkled his miraculously clean nose. “ _Ew_. Oh! I’m not all blotchy and bloodshot, am I?”

“Not a bit! You’re more beautiful than you’ve ever been before, hard as that is to credit.” Aziraphale brushed back the wet curls, which became dry curls, and kissed him on the forehead. “Would some refreshment help you make peace with all this?”

“Maybe,” said Crowley. Aziraphale’s wants were as clear and bright as his eyes: Crowley to be happy, wine and cheese and fruit to fortify them, further experimentation to discover what their female aspects could get up to in the way of earthly pleasures. All worthwhile things, but no hurry about any of them. “Can we stay like this a little longer?”

“As long as you like, my dear.”

Crowley smiled, and kissed him over the heart.

-30-

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Afterglow](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24765763) by [Katzedecimal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katzedecimal/pseuds/Katzedecimal)




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